And, if you’re wondering how it all works and how you go about buying and paying, I’ve also set up a page of Shopping Information.

Coming up look out for donation-only books for sale in the Bookshop, these will be books where you get to choose how much you want to pay for them – and that includes $0 if you decide! Shipping costs will be as usual.

Them books, them books, them… cool books.

Not Always Right left me speechless with hilarity.

And Today is My Birthday! makes fun of what teh kidz are listening to which resulted in me doing that snorty-nose-exhale-trying-not-to-laugh-in-public thing. Love her work.

And I am reading more Dan Rhodes! Squee!

Plus – I’m still selling off them books, y’all. Please to be supporting BookieMonster in her work by purchasing.

Of course I’m also still selling on Trade Me, so I’ve also included a new pic link to that too – these are both at the top of the sidebar to your right – over there —->

I’ll be gradually putting up books for sale over the next little while. Hopefully the selling process will be pretty obvious – the products pages will just have your shopping cart to the right, every product will have a little “Add to Cart” button, and when you’re finished you press Checkout and enter your details! To start with I’ll only be accepting payment to our bank account. And we are GST registered at BookieMonster, just in case you need to know.

This is all a bit of a learning curve for me, so please feel free to let me know if anything doesn’t work properly or if I could make anything easier.  I’ll also be offering some free/ultra cheap books to buy (paying shipping only) with a donation button – so you can pay as much or as little as you want for the book – it all helps go towards keeping BookieMonster up and running and reviewing and hosted, haha.

And don’t forget, if you can’t buy the book you’re looking for from us then please use our Book Depository affiliate link – they have MILLIONS of books and free shipping worldwide!

Thanks heaps for all your support, my dear readers!

She goes through those things faster than a teen with Twilight.

$1! We haz books you can buy for $1! We haz books you can buy for $3! We haz books you can buy for $5! (You probably see the pattern). For $1 a book you can help provide a kitty with collars… homemade cat toys… catnip… and a new snuggy hot water bottle.

I hope your heartstrings feel pulled.

And also, for your edification, I am now an affiliate for The Book Depository UK. What this means is that if you click the links to The Book Depository on this site and then buy something (anything) from those lovely people, BookieMonster gets a small commission (What we don’t get is any information on who, what, where, or why you’re buying – just in case you were wondering).

Which of course is just a little thing to help keep the blog running. And if you don’t know about The Book Depository UK – they ship free! Free, everywhere! Everywhere in the whole world that is! And have, like, millions and millions of books! I wonder if they read them all? So if you like to buy books from them, please consider using our links.

Aaaaaaand, (god, I’m pushy) please don’t forget to recommend BookieMonster to your friends for visiting, reading, buying, commenting, laughing at, etc! Email all your mates! Text your acquaintances! Paint pictures! Take out a classified! Rent blimps! Those airplane banner thingys!* Imagine me when I’m an 85 year old crazy cat lady, surrounded by my 13 cats, reliving the good old days of BookieMonster, and all the lovely people who visited my site and told other lovely people. It warms the cockles of your heart, doesn’t it?

BookieMonster at 85. Doesn't look a day over 20.

*If you do any of these things I disclaim all responsibility, silly.

You’re looking for a quick buy of a great book at a low price - I have the sale for you! We want to get new books on our shelves to sell, so this week we’re listing all our books at easy low prices so you can go ahead and buy that title you’ve had your eye on and we can get some books flying out of here, ready for great new ones to fly on in!

We’ve reduced the prices on almost all the stock too – some as low as starting at $1 and $3 (serious, we are) – and some of those are also NEW books. Otherwise there are also plenty of new books for just 10 bucks – $10 I tell you. Sweet.

So, go ahead, have a good browse of our books and help us to clear out some room so we can take new books into our hearts. Those little, lonely, bedraggled books are looking for us to take care of them. Open your heart. Yes, indeed.

Any questions? Just ask!

P.S. And don’t forget that because I’m so lovely, I’m giving away a copy of the great new New Zealand book Home by Alison Parr – enter today, closes tomorrow!

Because we don’t always have all our books listed at one time, these change quite often. There’s generally always a Jasper Fforde, or a Kazuo Ishiguro, and on rare occasions a Terry Pratchett (I tell you, people hold on to those little buggers), any number of New Zealand books and the odd non-fiction. Basically anything I like, I’ll designate a Recommended or Highly Recommended (I really like those!) Read.

It’s a good way too of browsing a list of a more manageable size.

P.S. The site was down for about an hour today and I originally wrote this as it was going down. And subsequently lost what was a far more original and exciting post, I’m sure. The great lost post it was… *sigh*

How to Build a Great Screenplay by David Howard ($16)

In making individual decisions about each element of the screenplay a writer builds a good story from the ground up. David Howard offers in-depth consideration of the many elements that make up a screenplay, clarifying his lessons through examples from the most successful films: Pulp Fiction, American Beauty, The Usual Suspects, Trainspotting and Chinatown among many others.

Accessible, clear and practical ‘How To Build A Great Screenplay’ is a working bible for the budding screenwriter. Recognising that story structure is the framework for a successful screenplay David Howard teaches how to incorporate the other elements so that the screenplay takes on a life of its own, creating the emotional connection, spectacle and intellectual stimulation that will impact on an audience.

JPod : A Novel by Douglas Coupland ($11)

Ethan Jarlewski and five co-workers are bureaucratically marooned in JPod, a no-escape architectural limbo on the fringes of a massive Vancouver video game design company.

The six jPodders wage daily battle against the demands of a bone-headed marketing staff, who daily torture employees with idiotic changes to already idiotic games. Meanwhile, Ethan’s personal life is shaped (or twisted) by phenomena as disparate as Hollywood, marijuana grow-ops, people-smuggling, ballroom dancing, and the rise of China. JPod’s universe is amoral and shamelessand dizzyingly fast-paced.

I just <3 Douglas Coupland so much. He’s damn funny and damn weird. Recommended!

The Chimney Sweeper’s Boy – Barbara Vine ($11)

Bestselling and critically acclaimed novelist Gerald Candless dies suddenly, and leaves behind a wife and two doting daughters. To sort through her grief, his daughter Sarah puts aside her university studies and agrees to write a biography of her famous father. But as she begins her research and pulls back the veil of his past, her life is slowly torn apart: a terrible logic begins to unfold that explains her mother’s remoteness, her father’s need to continually reinvent himself — and sheds shocking light on a long-forgotten London murder.

Regular readers will know that I discovered the amazing writing of Barbara Vine only last year (the shame, the shame!) and this is a fantastic book – highly recommended by me.

Virginia Woolf – Hermione Lee ($10)

While Virginia Woolf–one of our century’s most brilliant and mercurial writers–has had no shortage of biographers, none has seemed as naturally suited to the task as Hermione Lee. Subscribing to Virginia Woolf’s own belief in the fluidity and elusiveness of identity, Lee comes at her subject from a multitude of perspectives, producing a richly layered portrait of the writer and the woman that leaves all of her complexities and contradictions intact. Such issues as sexual abuse, mental illness, and suicide are brought into balance with the immensity of her literary achievement, her heroic commitment to her work, her generosity and wit, and her sanity and strength.

One of the best biographies I’ve read, Lee delves so deep into Woolf’s life and character you feel like you’ve somehow known her.

Hey! It’s That Guy! : The Fametracker.com Guide to Character Actors ($8)

So you’re watching Full Metal Jacket and there he is that guy! What’s his name? You know, that guy who always plays a drill sergeant! Or you’re watching Fast Times at Ridgemont High and there’s another one that creepy science teacher! That guy always plays a creepy somebody! What’s his name?

We’re talking about R. Lee Ermey and Vincent Schiavelli, of course and you can read all about them in Hey! It’s That Guy!, a guide to identifying “famous” character actors and actresses.

From Steve Buscemi and Philip Seymour Hoffman to J. T. Walsh, Judy Greer, and Amy Aquino, they’re all here. You may not know their names, but you’ll certainly recognize their faces! 

Hilarious. And I love Steve Buscemi. Mwah, mwah, mwah.

Fashions in Makeup : From Ancient to Modern Times by Richard Corson (start price $40)

Fashions in Makeup is a unique book in its field: a comprehensive history of cosmetics. In this highly praised volume, Richard Corson chronicles the pursuit of beauty from Ancient Egypt to the present day.

Concentrating mainly on makeup traditions of the Western world, with examples from other countries included for comparison, Corson describes the cosmetics with which men and women have decorated their faces, how they have applied them, and what they looked like as a result.

This is a huge book! And it’s really amazing, full of photos and pictures and totally comprehensive. In fact I don’t really know how much more comprehensive you could get on makeup.  Historically intriguing, very learned… and kind of fun. Great stuff. And if you want to buy this from overseas, new or used it’s pantsically expensive.

And this leads me to…

Pretty Things : The Last Generation of American Burlesque Queens by Liz Goldwyn (start price $30)

Liz Goldwyn’s lifelong fascination with the inimitable glamour of classic burlesque inspired her to spend the past eight years corresponding with, visiting, interviewing, receiving striptease lessons from, and forming close relationships with the last generation of the great American burlesque queeens. Goldwyn invites us to step back into an era when the hourglass figure was in vogue and striptease was a true art form.

Meet Betty “Ball of Fire” Rowland, who was known for her flaming red hair and bump-and-grind routines. (It turns out she once sued the author’s grandfather, Samuel Goldwyn Jr., for using her stage name and costume in his Hollywood picture, Ball of Fire.)

Meet Sherry Britton, who, with her long black hair and curvy, trim physique, was among the most stunning of the burlesque stars before Mayor LaGuardia outlawed burlesque in New York.

Meet Zorita, whose sexually explicit “Consummation of the Wedding of the Snake” dance (performed with a live snake) and other daring performances earned her legendary status.

Goldwyn draws back the curtain to reveal the personal journeys of yesteryear’s icons of female sexuality and power, restoring their legacy to an age that has all but forgotten them-despite today’s resurgence of burlesque.

I originally imported this as a new book but it arrived with a cover that had a faded edge on it, so I’m selling it as a secondhand. Still, don’t let that put you off. The insides are immaculate and dripping with photos, drawings, memorabilia – this is an awesome record of burlesque and burlesque queens. And their costumes were outstanding. Plus, despite the fading, I still love the cover. Pink and gold and peek-a-boo.  *sigh* Just so lovely.

But yes, we are having a sale. For starters we have around 400 NEW books that are all going for $20.95 or less. Less than $20.95! 

Like, for instance, $15.95 Or $9.95 – OMG SRSLY? 

Like, SRSLY. So get in there. Those books are selling, they are going, they are goneburger. Without them, your life is pantsical.² Don’t be pantsical. You wouldn’t like it when it’s pantsical. 

Now, as well as this amazing news of epic awesomeness³ I’ve loaded some really cool secondhand books for sale. They are so cool I want to buy them. But I am not allowed to buy from myself. They are that cool. 

Hyde Park Gate News : The Stephen Family Newspaper by Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell with Thoby Stephen $18 

As children, Virginia Woolf, elder sister Vanessa Bell, and brother Thoby, collaborated on their very own newspaper, recording the day-to-day events of the family home, 22 Hyde Park Gate. They called the paper ‘Hyde Park Gate News’, and the original manuscripts are published here for the first time. Gossipy, playful and at times irreverent, they record the comings and goings of a host of figures – George Meredith and Henry James among them – whilst also proffering their own fictional and poetic creations. 

Gardening with Carnivores : Sarracenia Pitcher Plants in Cultivation and in the Wild by Nick Romanowski $15 

A complete guide to these ornamental plants, from natural history to hybridisation and from making a bog garden to using the pitchers as long-lasting cut “flowers”. 

When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris $14 

Culminating in a brilliant account of his venture to Tokyo in order to quit smoking, David Sedaris’s sixth essay collection is a new masterpiece of comic writing from “a writer worth treasuring” (Seattle Times). 

Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk $10 

Agent Number 67, nicknamed Pygmy for his diminutive size, arrives in the United States from his totalitarian homeland (a mash-up of North Korea, Cuba, Communist-era China, and Nazi-era Germany), as an ‘exchange student’ into the welcoming arms of his Simpsons-spinoff Midwestern host family. 

A Dagg at my Table : Writings 1977 – 1996 by John Clarke $8 

An hilarious selection of the best of John Clarke’s writing. Included are his early Fred Dagg radio scripts, his history of farnarkeling, his unforgettable royal commissions, his poems, and his famous television interviews with everyone from Bob Hawke to John Howard.

More to come! 

¹Ponies not included 

²Having the property of, or quality of, being pants. Yes, I made that up. I hereby give you all permission to go forth and use it and tell people who made it up, i.e. me. 

³Shout out to my nephew